This yearís annual
picnic, held at Shady Hollow Pavilion, was attended by old and new
League members and potential League members. As usual, the potluck dinner
was delicious as it was diverse. Our speakers for the evening were Mark
Jackson and Sarah Skapin, Community Outreach of the Summit County Board of
Elections (BOE). We heard the most up to date information on the following
topics:

Voter ID requirements

Voter registration

Voting absentee

Becoming a poll worker

Even though League
members tend to be fairly well informed on election issues, those who
attended had plenty of questions for our guest speakers.

A few of the key points
discussed:

There will be open
voter registration conducted by the Summit County BOE on October 3, 4, and
6, which is the final day to register in order to vote in the general
election on November 4.

There will be NO
absentee voting at the Board of Elections this year. Their facility was
completely overwhelmed by the turnout to vote absentee in the last election,
so early in-person voting has been moved to The Job Center at 1040 East
Tallmadge Avenue for this election. There is plenty of parking, as well as a
bus stop right in front. The BOE is anticipating upwards of 100,000 absentee
voters for this election.

Absentee voting begins
on September 30, 35 days prior to Election Day. The last day to apply to
vote absentee is Saturday, November 1. By law, absentee ballots must be
received by the BOE not later than 7:30 pm on election night. You may
remember that last election some 200 absentee ballots were not delivered by
the Post Office by the deadline, so even though the ballots were postmarked
in time, they were not counted. Please remember that the law has not been
changed, so if you are unsure your ballot will be delivered in time, it may
be best to take it to the Board of Elections yourself.

Another item of
importance to LWVAA is that voter registration forms must be returned to
the Board of Elections within 10 days of being filled out or they become
invalid. If you register voters on behalf of League, be sure to deliver
them to the Board of Elections in a timely fashion. Additionally, undated
registration forms will no longer be accepted, so please make certain that
forms are filled out completely.

There has been one change in voter ID requirements: while a military ID is
still an acceptable form of ID to present at the polls, it is no longer
required to show the service personís current address as it was in the past.
This change was necessitated by the fact that military IDís have never shown
the service personís address, which resulted in some confusion at the polls
in the last election.

If you have any
other questions regarding voter ID, voter registration, or absentee voting,
and for a complete list of acceptable identification for voting, procedures
for voting absentee, etc., please visit the Summit County Board of Elections
website at
www.summitcountyboe.com or the Ohio Secretary of Stateís website at
www.sos.state.oh.us.